Ezekiel 37:1-14 (John 11:20-45)
Absurd, Impossible Endings
James Sledge April
6, 2014
“Can these bones live?” The question
would seem to be absurd. The scene in Ezekiel’s vision is one of utter and
awful devastation, a valley filled with sun-bleached bones. There is only one
possible explanation. A horrible massacre of some sort had occurred. An army
had totally annihilated an enemy. No one was left to bury the dead, an
appalling fate for a Jew. The fallen had been stripped of anything valuable and
then left to the birds and the elements. In time there was nothing left but
bones, dried out bones.
“Can these bones live?” What an absurd question, but it seems the
prophet knows better than to dismiss the absurd when God is involved. “O Lord God, you know.”
The
prophet Ezekiel has blasted Israel for their total failure to be the people
they were called to be. He says their defeat and exile by the Babylonians is
God’s doing, and it appears God is done with them. Their story is over, and
yet… “Can
these bones live?”
Ezekiel
tells exiled Israel that they are these dry bones. But what about us? Can we
speak of dry bones?
Some
see the Church in America “in exile” and facing death. Some predict a European landscape
where churches are more museum than body of Christ, and all across our country,
individual congregations and denominations are facing death.
Many
in our country are worried about the decline of the middle class or the demise
of the American dream. Is the promise of a better life for any who would work
hard simply dead?
In
politics and in world events, there are countless problems and conflicts that
seem endless and hopeless. And surely most of us have experienced our own moments
when all hope seems lost. There are relationships that are beyond repair,
estrangement that cannot be healed. There is faith that is lost, dead and gone forever.
“Can
these bones live?”
“Can these bones live?” Perhaps I could
ask another way. Is resurrection possible? Is new life possible? It would seem
that one could not be a Christian without some sort of hope in resurrection,
but too often this gets confined to “What will happen when you die?” But that’s
a different question than, “Can these bones live?” And Jesus is
talking about something different when he says, “I Am
the resurrection and the life.”
Jesus
speaks these words just before raising Lazarus from the dead after four days in
the tomb. He’s talking to Martha, Lazarus’ sister, who already believes in a
resurrection on the last day. But he tells Martha that he is something more,
something bigger than heaven at the end. “I Am
the resurrection and the life. These bones can live now!”
It is easy to forget that the power of
God is about more than heaven when you die. You would think church would be the
last place people would forget that God can do what seems absurd, even
impossible, but most of us do forget at times. We see stories where we cannot
imagine any ending but a bad one, and we think, “That’s it. There’s no hope,”
without ever stopping to consider that God might imagine a different,
improbable, impossible ending. We forget, even though our Christian story is about
an absurd, impossible ending.
Some
years ago at a Covenant Network conference, Tom Long preached a sermon
reminding people that when we see what we think are hopeless situations, we
need to remember that our faith is about surprising, unexpected endings. Even
when everything seems to point toward death and hopelessness and despair, God can
bring forth life.
Long
is a preaching professor, and he told of leading a clergy event far on the
others side of Atlanta from where he works and lives. During a break, but with too
time to run home or to the office, he decided to get a haircut and hunted for a
Supercuts or some such place.
I found one, and
when I went in I was in the chair, and the woman was cutting my hair, and she
said, “I don’t recognize you. Have you ever been in here before?” I told
her no, that I was a Presbyterian minister and that I was leading a clergy
seminar. And she brightened up and said, “Oh, I’m a Christian, too, you
know.” I said, “Really!” She said, “Yes, I’m a member of Creflo Dollar’s
church.”
You may not know
Creflo Dollar, but he is the latest incarnation of the “God Wants You to be
Rich” theology. He drives a black Rolls Royce, he has a corporate jet, and his
congregation has bought him millions of dollars of real estate. He is
known locally as Cash-flow Dollar, and here is this woman telling me, “I’m a
member of Creflo Dollar’s church.” I’m thinking to myself, “I’m already
getting a bad haircut, now I’m going to get bad theology as well!”
But to be
hospitable I played along – she was holding a razor, after all. I said,
“Well, have you got your blessing yet?”
She said, “Oh
yes, I’ve gotten my blessing, all right!”
“Well, tell me
about it,” I said, expecting her to say something about the Lexus in the
parking lot or the diamond earrings in the scissors drawer.
But
instead she said, “Two nights a week I get to volunteer in a shelter for
battered women. I was one myself, you know, and they trust me. They need me. They
know I love them.”
I sat there
silently thinking, “My God! Jesus is loose in Creflo Dollar’s
church!” It’s amazing the way he does it. He hangs around in the
parking lot refusing to go in, letting them gorge themselves on greed and
selfishness until the witness to the gospel is dead – absolutely dead! And
when it is dead, then Jesus says, “It’s time for me to go in.” We say to
Jesus, “Don’t go in that church, Jesus! That one is dead. It’s been dead
four days! Can’t you smell it? It stinks!”
And Jesus says,
“This is not about death; this is about the glory of God.” And he goes
into Creflo Dollar’s church, and he finds a nine-dollar-an-hour hair cutter,
and by the power of God he ordains her in the Holy Spirit to be a minister of
the most high God and she has a ministry of trust and compassion. It’s not
hope that is running out of time. It’s death that is running out of time. It’s
injustice that is running out of time.
If
Jesus is loose, then God’s power to make dry bones live, God’s power for life
and hope is loose in the world. And all those places where hope seems gone,
where the story can’t have a good ending, where relationships are beyond
repair, where the world seems to be going the wrong way, are places where God
can write absurd, improbable, impossible endings, endings we might never
imagine or expect. But perhaps we should imagine and expect them. After all, we
know the answer to the question, “Can these bones live?”
[1]
Thomas G. Long, “Just…in Time,” delivered at the Covenant Network of
Presbyterians’ annual conference, November 3, 2005.
No comments:
Post a Comment